What do you do when God just won’t answer your financial prayers? If you’re Music Minister Jim Creason, you rob a bank. But don’t worry — his Pastor assures us that Jim is “a good Christian man, with a big heart.”
In other news, did you know that 84% of convicted criminals are self-proclaimed Christians?
I had a friend who worked in the prison system for awhile (as a nurse) and she once told me that the first thing criminals do when incarcerated is get religion. I expect they are trying to shave some time off their sentences for good behavior if they attend weekly Bible study.
There are many laughable, sad elements to this story, but a bright (but also sad) spot was a line near the end: “At his former church, First Baptist of Leesburg, they said they would have been willing to help Creason had he only asked for it.”
I would be interested in seeing a post on this site regarding Christian charity compared to atheistic charity. As a Christian, I’ve often heard other Christians point out that you don’t see to many atheist charitable organizations, that those who believe in God have a world-view that does a better job of meeting the needs of humanity. What would you all say?
@Brent: I would refer you to
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2007/05/atheist-charity.html
I think you’d be hard-pressed to prove that everyone involved in a so-called “Christian” charity is in fact a practicing Christian. My guess is you would find people of many faiths, or lack thereof, involved. Additionally, there are many charities that are not specifically Christian, or religion-based (Doctors without Borders, & Mercy Corp. come to mind).
@Brent:
“As a Christian, I’ve often heard other Christians point out that you don’t see to many atheist charitable organizations, that those who believe in God have a world-view that does a better job of meeting the needs of humanity. What would you all say?”
Why do you think that atheists should have the own charities -non-belief in god doesn’t define who you are any more than non-belief in unicorns. Do you think there should be charities run by people who don’t believe in unicorns?
The second point is just as ludicrous as well – if there’s one thing that religion teaches you it’s that non-believers are “second class citizens” and can be treated as such – is this a better way of meeting the needs of humanity? Oh and if you want to look at Christian charity just look at how the Catholic Church is adding to the HIV/AIDS problems with its teachings.
In conclusion as far as I can see you post is just another “atheist don’t have morals” statements but dressed up in a different way.
If the unicorn that these people believed in was also believed to be a perfect being that commanded they love one another, feed the poor and the sick and hungry, visit those in prison, etc., then there might well be advantages to charities being run by people who believed in unicorns. And you might also see a statistical distribution favoring these people in the founding and running of charitable organizations. Especially if a vast section of earth’s population believed in said unicorn. As far as I’m aware, there is no atheist creed concerning charity. And while the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation gives away money like it’s going out of style, I’m not sure about its ultimate motivations, or its effectiveness, since the bulk of its charity seems to be involved in giving underprivileged people free computers.
@Jonboy:
If the mainstream religions really did say and practised love one another, feed the poor etc. then maybe you would have a point but on the grounds they don’t it’s obviously a false argument. A simple question is what good could have been done if the main religions had expended their energy on charity and not the own self-gratification. Interesting thought isn’t it – next time you see yet another church being built just think what good that money could have done?
Oh and better to give away free computers than stick to dogma that stops the single most effective remedy to HIV/AIDS being used don’t you think?
Jonboy, you say that a dogma – even a false one – that promotes charity is better than actually sitting down and deciding “I want to do what I can to make the world a better place”?
And Bill Gates is allowed to help people have better access to information if that’s the way he thinks he can best help. After all, it is his money he’s spending.
On Christian charity:
Firstly, lets give our due to anyone who gives to charity, religious or not. Second, lets also acknowledge that whether a person’s beliefs are rationally grounded or not, these beliefs can inspire behaviour, positive, negative and neutral. And so, lets acknowledge that there surely are many Christians who have been inspired to do good by the rosier passages in the Bible – y’know, the ones in between the darker passages that are generally skimmed by, attributed to the imperfections of the human transcribers, attributed to the times, or were “not meant to be taken literally”.
However, lets also acknowledge some of the other less rosy or simply more mundane reasons why Christians may be more disposed to give than nonreligious people.
Firstly, by virtue of the fact that their organizations claim to be the representatives of the ultimate reign-holder on morality, they kind of have to if for nothing more than for good PR. Bear in mind that in my saying that, I’m not intending at all to disqualify genuine positive motivation. I’m just listing it as a factor that should be considered. I surely do not dismiss genuine compassion which has been inarguably demonstrated in spades by millions of Christians time and time again.
Secondly, peer pressure and the desire to set a good example. When a collection plate or fundraiser or help effort is being run at a church, it would be pretty embarrassing for some people to do nothing in front of the others in their congregation. And the more people who, for whatever reason, take part, the greater the sense of perceived obligation created in others. And what if you’re a parent – don’t you want to set a good example for your child, especially when you’are at church?! As an analogy, if you’ve ever worked an office job and your place of work is doing some sort of collection drive for the United Way, a major hospital, or some other worthy charity, haven’t you ever felt a sense of peer pressure to make a contribution, if only so that you don’t appear like a jerk in front of coworkers? Imagine how much more intense such feelings would be at your church! The place where goodness is everything, where family and friends are present, and where God supposedly lives.
Thirdly, major charity efforts tend to require and/or greatly benefit from a pre-existing regularly convening social groups. The pre-existence of religious communities at times of need is an immediate huge help when it comes to doing good.
Lastly, we have to consider that some good acts by some Christians are going to be done in part for brownie points with God. This is another peripheral source of motivation that the Christian has that the atheist does not.
To conclude, I’m going to restate that I do intend at all to say that Christian charity efforts are all in one way or another disingenuous. I readily acknowledge that real compassion and kind-heartedness. However, if we’re considering cause and effect of Christianity and atheism, respectively, with respect to charitable behaviour, we should consider confounding factors.
Some atheist charities listed here:
http://techskeptic.blogspot.com/2007/12/atheist-charities.html
Yes, there are plenty of charitable Christians. There are also a lot of selfish, mean, destructive Christians. Let’s not get into the whole “They’re not real Christians” debate. I say that if someone says they are a Christian, then they are.
The point is that I do not think religion or lack thereof has any real effect on how nice or mean a person is. People will find a reason to justify whatever they want.
@ jonboy: “As far as I’m aware, there is no atheist creed concerning charity.” — Indeed, I’m not either. Out of curiosity, though, just how many atheist creeds ARE you aware of?
I think many theists believe that ‘godless’ means ‘evil’ or ‘immoral’. I guess I can see why they might think that, but it’s really quite silly. We get our sense of duty, or our sense of morality from the same place as anyone else. In other words, it doesn’t come from a book! Certainly not the christian bible. I don’t think I’d feel safe around anyone whose sense of morality came from that! Here’s a quotation from a site I just found that’s eloquent on this subject:
http://www.mwillett.org/atheism/moralsource.htm
“Why should an Atheist be moral, without a god to make him to do so? You may as well ask why he should use his head for something besides a mobile hat rack. Morality is a built-in condition of humanity; the moral tendency exists in just about everyone, barring psychopaths.
And that, luckily enough, leads us to the foundational principle of morality: empathy. Psychopaths lack empathy with their fellow human beings, and cannot be truly said to have a moral impulse.
The principle of morality is empathy; what differs are our approaches to that principle, and how we interpret our feelings of empathy in order to make a coherent system.”
@ pirx
I pulled this from that link you left…
“An Atheist can have any system of morality he or she wishes.”
Which is fine, I guess. But think about what that is actually saying. An atheist may profess any system of morality he or she chooses. Or none at all.
Empathy, while an interesting standard of morality, is not complete as such. You are going to need more than empathy to create a moral code, unfortunately.
One problem you might run into is that empathy, as the sole standard of morality breaks down. Often.
A baby that cries for six hours at a time, sleeps for two, and then cries for six more, becomes progressively harder to empathize with. What happens when you no longer empathize with the infant at all, or begin to regard its shrieking as a nuisance outweighing your empathy with it. Perhaps you suffer onward in silence, continuing to care for the child until adulthood. Or perhaps you don’t. There are apparently no rules concerning the scope of your empathy, nor how long you should continue acting as if you have empathy for someone when in truth you don’t. Is empathy more important than your own convenience? Too much empathy and you’ll be crippled, too little and you’re uncomfortably close to a psychopath.
Simplifying a moral code down to something as simple as ‘empathy’ is not going to cut it for me, especially not when the extent, duration, procedure, subjects, and limits of that empathy are left entirely up to free personal choice.
Hey Jonboy–if you’re worried about motivation, I’d stop giving to Christian charities. After all, most of them are about piggybacking the Gospel onto relief efforts.
In some places, this actually makes the situation worse. Shamans of various sorts order that no-one shall touch the blasphemers’ food or some such rot.
In the particular case of the Catholic Church, how many people might have been spared AIDS had the tithing faithful withdrawn their support and iunstead packed up a couple of million condoms and mailed them?
The major advantage faith-based organizations have over non-theist ones is organization and distribution. Organizing people of any nature to do charity without either instant gratification or a deeper unifying element is like herding cats.
Myself, I give to the Mennonite Central Comittee. And many atheists, I’m sure, make similar gifts despite not having instructions from Big Sky Daddy to do so.
But none of us should ever forget that the soup always comes with a sermon.
When that irks me, I also like to give to UNICEF (it’s one of those nontheist charities).
You’re right about empathy, by the by–it only takes us so far. But enlightened self interest works wonders.
Jonboy said:
@ pirx
I pulled this from that link you left…
“An Atheist can have any system of morality he or she wishes.”
Which is fine, I guess. But think about what that is actually saying. An atheist may profess any system of morality he or she chooses. Or none at all.
Later, Jonboy says:
Simplifying a moral code down to something as simple as ‘empathy’ is not going to cut it for me…
Not going to cut it for you? What is that phrase supposed to mean? So now you get to decide what morality is? Do you get to dictate it to others? It sounds like you are trying to make your own moral code.
Hmmmm, let me try that:
Christianity just doesn’t cut it for me.
Wow, this is easy! Cased closed! Religion expunged! Thanks Jonboy!
@ EKM
Yes, yes, you’re very witty.
Christianity, however, does in fact contain a complete moral code (whether or not you like it). Empathy as an abstraction does not contain a complete moral code. Which is why I said it “didn’t cut it for me” as the only standard of pirx’s morality.
@ Metro
Explain “enlightened self-interest”?
@Jonboy -
“Christianity, however, does in fact contain a complete moral code”
I’m a little curious. Firstly, How do you know that a moral code is “complete”?
Secondly, Christianity contains several moral codes. I doubt that you embrace the centrality of poverty and celibacy, but these were vitally important to the early church. How do you determine which aspect of Christian teachings apply?
Enlightened self-interest: Making things better for everyone makes things better for me.
I doubt I’d call it a moral code, but it’s at least as valid as the golden rule, or the eleventh commandment.
All I’m really saying is that moral codes don’t have to be imposed from outside. And when they are, they don’t work. Otherwise why bother with a criminal justice system?
As to the morality of Christianity, I’ll second VorJack–Have you ever read Leviticus? It’s full of it.
@ VorJack
Christianity contains an underlying goal for its moral code, rules that serve as examples of ‘right’ conduct for its adherents that can be extrapolated in case of any new situations, and a continuing dialogue about the merits and usefulness of its moral teachings. Thousands of relatively well educated people have been actively involved in extracting the morality of the Christian religion in the most effective ways possible for literally thousands of years. Christianity’s professed purpose is to better the physical and spiritual condition of people in “all nations.”
Now, I don’t know what your standards of completeness are, but Christianity does seem more ‘complete’ than ‘empathy’ or even ‘enlightened self-interest.’ At least it does to me.
Yes, I have read the book of Leviticus. And yes, it is in the Christian bible as it is currently put together. I would like to point out, however, that doctrinally Leviticus enjoys a completely separate position from the teachings of Jesus, since Leviticus (one of the books of the old law) is part of the ‘Old Covenant’ that the New Testament replaces. It is by no means worthless, since it gives insight into the standards behind Christian morality and the culture that produced Jesus, but it holds far more weight for Judaism than it does for the Christian religion.
@ metro
I really don’t see the point of enlightened self-interest as a moral code. Maybe that’s just me? I don’t understand how a person becomes motivated to adopt this code, much less maintain it. I don’t know about morality being imposed from the outside, but you must have considerably more faith in human nature than I if you believe that reason, logic, education, or ‘enlightenment’ (without, that is, the spiritual component of enlightenment as I understand it) will serve as a foundation for moral development.
@Jonboy:
“Yes, I have read the book of Leviticus. And yes, it is in the Christian bible as it is currently put together. I would like to point out, however, that doctrinally Leviticus enjoys a completely separate position from the teachings of Jesus, since Leviticus (one of the books of the old law) is part of the ‘Old Covenant’ that the New Testament replaces. It is by no means worthless, since it gives insight into the standards behind Christian morality and the culture that produced Jesus, but it holds far more weight for Judaism than it does for the Christian religion. ”
This is where the argument that Christianity is the font of a complete and correct moral code falls apart. Parts of your holy text have been either ignored, made less important or more important. This then raises the question where did the guidance come from for what to follow which if course can’t be the Bible. This is of course compounded by the fact that the Christian holy text is itself highly contradictory in its terms of what is moral. Of course the real answer is actually very clear, the Bible can be used to justify almost any moral code if you pick and choose what parts of it are the “right” parts i.e. Christian morality is actually driven by society as a whole and not the other away around. History has even shown this to be true as the moral code of Christianity today is radical different to that of today. Were Christians of only 200 hundred years ago not true Christians?
@ Jabster
I highly recommend the book ‘Velvet Elvis’ by Rob Bell at Mars Hill. He shows biblical evidence for why he believes the church should be continually adapting and changing its message to best convey true morality. He argues that according to the teachings of Jesus, the ultimate goal of Christianity is to best address the needs of humanity; if that means changes based on culture, then so be it.
As to the use of the Bible to justify ANY morality… I’m not sure if that can be done. Maybe it can. I’m pretty sure that statement isn’t supportable, since you have no way to test every single morality and see how it fits within a biblical framework. That the Bible can be used to justify heinous moral codes is a given. So can anything else given enough bending. I can fabricate all sorts of horrible moral codes based on Marxism, Lockean political theory, the works of Shakespeare, this note I found in the lobby of the Motel 6…
Sure, you CAN demonstrate that the Bible can be used to justify all sorts of bad things. What you should attempt to show is that the Bible is somehow uniquely suited for this exercise, or is in some way comprehensively immoral.
The Bible was not, as far as I know, used to justify the bank robbery in the OP. While such a justification could be made, it would be extremely questionable and most Christian moralists would denounce the act of bank robbery as immoral.
@ jabster again
BTW, the point you raise here:
“Christian morality is actually driven by society as a whole and not the other away around.”
is actually a very good one. My sincere compliments. It is a huge problem with Christianity as it stands, and I don’t feel particularly qualified to deal with it. I really do recommend that book; it’s quite short and readable. I recommend it mostly to demonstrate that at least there is an ongoing dialogue within the Christian community addressing the exact topic you deftly summarized. I wish I could say Christianity was right on track with this whole morality thing… unfortunately I don’t really think it is. I wish Christians were all manifestly moral people, but wishful thinking is not going to make that happen. I do maintain though, that Christianity provides a ‘better’ moral code than most or many non-theistic moral codes.
Thanks for discussing!
@Jonboy:
Well I did say “almost any moral code” not “justify ANY morality” and I would stand by that as the Bible is so ambiguous that it’s possible to interpret it in so many ways.
“Sure, you CAN demonstrate that the Bible can be used to justify all sorts of bad things. What you should attempt to show is that the Bible is somehow uniquely suited for this exercise, or is in some way comprehensively immoral.”
This to me is an interesting point as the Bible and other holy texts demonstrate that the human species do have some sort of “in-built” moral code. This is clearly demonstrated in that almost all religions have some very common themes into what is “right” and “wrong” and these values also occur in non-believers. Of course it is important to remember that all holy texts are actually a human invention as the god(s) they are supposed to represent don’t exist. i.e. the moral code is a human one.
@ Jabster
“This to me is an interesting point as the Bible and other holy texts demonstrate that the human species do have some sort of “in-built” moral code. This is clearly demonstrated in that almost all religions have some very common themes into what is “right” and “wrong” and these values also occur in non-believers. Of course it is important to remember that all holy texts are actually a human invention as the god(s) they are supposed to represent don’t exist. i.e. the moral code is a human one.”
Hmm. The problem here is that I’m biased. Humanity having shared moral values can be used, it seems to me, to also support the existence of a moral God in whose image we are made.
I think human morality equally supports two options. Either humanity has an “in-built” moral code that is fundamentally human in origin, or there is a divine moral code which has been transmitted.
What do you think? Very hard for me to look at this issue in a vacuum. Do you see any problems with the idea of human morality supporting the existence of God at least as well as supporting morality as a human invention?
@Jonboy: The problem I have with suggesting the human morality is divine in nature is very simple. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it and there is certainly no evidence for it. In fact many attributes can be much better explained by the humans are socially creatures and therefore social rules, in general, come naturally to us and are to our advantage.
Why would something being difficult to understand support the existence of a god? This has been tried throughout the ages and each time an perfectly reasonable explanation comes up and god is no where to be seen. This means that the concept of god has been pushed further and further into the margins of real knowledge and still only exists as the “we don’t understand this so it must be god” type reasoning. So if you feel the morality supports the existence of god you must also conclude that morality supports the idea that zebras are actually an advanced race of aliens who created the earth and are sticking around to see what happens. The two ideas seem equally valid to me.
@ Jabster
Sigh… we already sort of had this discussion up at #5.
It’s faulty logic for you to make these kinds of assertions (God=leprechaun or zebra aliens) without either asserting that 1) God is a meaningless term, or 2) Zebra aliens have exactly the same characteristics that are ascribed to God, in which case they are God. If you would like to assert one of these, pick one and go for it, but it’s a hassle to have to explain this fallacy every time someone commits it.
As for the rest, I know that morality can be explained by non-theistic means, but I think the explanations have certain problems. I don’t buy that a remarkably uniform moral code could have evolved sociologically from people spread out over the entire earth over the course of most of their development. That seems unlikely to me, and since I already believe in God, the step from worldwide uniformity to divine cause comes easier for me. If the scientific explanation for morality suddenly became immensely more comprehensive, and could come up with a better reason why the evolutionary development of morality should be so uniform across cultures, I would be more inclined to take it seriously.
@Jonboy: It’s not faulty logic at all if the term god is applied to any of the mainstream religions. Please remember they all contain more than just god as the creator. Do you really think that if you ask a Christian or a Muslim whether they thought that their god was an alien zebra and their holy texts were man made they would consider the possibility that this might be true? The second point about this is it is often considered reasonable to attribute claims with no evidence to a mainstream religion’s god but to do this with aliens means that you must somehow be “mad”. If on the other hand you want to attribute god to just the entity that created the world in which we live then there is still no reason to believe this to be true but it’s a more valid position t take than a God.
To take your second point I feel this is where the problem lies. You start from the position that god is a fact (whatever version of god you are using) and then work from there. It therefore comes as no surprise that your reasoning leads you to find the correct “facts” that point to “it was God that did it.” Unfortunately as soon as you put god into the mix as a fact the truth will always be hard to find. This type of thinking is similar to trying to work out the movement of the Earth and the Sun. Assuming the Earth was fixed meant that this was impossible i.e. the truth requires you to look at what the what the evidence points to and not make the evidence bend to what has been decided as “fact”.
@ Jabster
I don’t understand what on earth you’re talking about when you say: “It’s not faulty logic at all if the term god is applied to any of the mainstream religions. Please remember they all contain more than just god as the creator. Do you really think that if you ask a Christian or a Muslim whether they thought that their god was an alien zebra and their holy texts were man made they would consider the possibility that this might be true?”
Maybe you could explain what you mean differently?
Spell it out, I won’t be offended. Right now I think there must be a logical step that you haven’t explained.
@Jonboy: A simple logical step if you believe there is a creator in terms of the Christian or Muslim versions as true then you must also, logically, believe that the creator could also be anything else including aliens that are living on Earth as Zerbras. There is no more evidence for one than the other. Do you believe that your version of god could be the latter and if not please explain logically why not.
Ha! Okay, I get it now.
1) my particular holy text would indicate that it was not aliens masquerading as zebras, and I accord it a certain amount of precedence in these discussions.
2) I have satisfied myself with the evidence for the existence of God. Maybe my consideration of this evidence isn’t up to your stringent standards, but I like to think of myself as relatively intelligent. I’ve thought about the issue, and I find enough evidence to convince me that there is a supernatural or divine power outside of normal experience, but not far enough outside it that we can have no knowledge of it. If it was impossible to have knowledge of God, then I think your logic holds, but I have knowledge of God (and so do you, come to think of it.) You haven’t decided the evidence was good enough for you, which is fair enough. But rest assured, if the evidence against the existence of God were more convincing than it actually is, I certainly wouldn’t be on this website arguing about it…
@Jonboy:
Why not? According to you, they might well go for unproven assertions that an impossible god wants them to follow his moral code, as forced on them by His shamans.
Not to mention that this then brings about the whole hairy question of why god seems to approve of what, in our society, would be called child rape, but in others is simply called “marriage,” for example.
Enlightened self-interest is purely internal. And that’s the only problem with it. It is used as justification for the welfare state and capitalism, and the extreme and less-workable permutations of outright communism and unrestricted kleptocracy. It relies on a common majority position resembling sanity. Religion outright undermines such a position.
You also assert that humans have evolved uniform moral codes. This seems logical to me. Certain survival behaviours support the tribe. However, the devil is in the details. Read Levicitcus, and contrast that to a) reccomended survival guides for desert nomads, and b) the same rules as dictated in the Koran, for example.
The things religion imposes atop social moral codes are either mere window dressing or irrelevant.
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